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"Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics."
lol
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...s_opinion_main
Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.
Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents' (all American adults) answers to eight survey questions about basic economics. We also asked the respondents about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian.
Rather than focusing on whether respondents answered a question correctly, we instead looked at whether they answered incorrectly. A response was counted as incorrect only if it was flatly unenlightened.
Consider one of the economic propositions in the December 2008 poll: "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." People were asked if they: 1) strongly agree; 2) somewhat agree; 3) somewhat disagree; 4) strongly disagree; 5) are not sure.
Basic economics acknowledges that whatever redeeming features a restriction may have, it increases the cost of production and exchange, making goods and services less affordable. There may be exceptions to the general case, but they would be atypical.
Therefore, we counted as incorrect responses of "somewhat disagree" and "strongly disagree." This treatment gives leeway for those who think the question is ambiguous or half right and half wrong. They would likely answer "not sure," which we do not count as incorrect.
In this case, percentage of conservatives answering incorrectly was 22.3%, very conservatives 17.6% and libertarians 15.7%. But the percentage of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly was 67.6% and liberals 60.1%. The pattern was not an anomaly.
The other questions were: 1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). 2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). 3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). 4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree). 5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). 6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). 7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree).
How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.
Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics.
To be sure, none of the eight questions specifically challenge the political sensibilities of conservatives and libertarians. Still, not all of the eight questions are tied directly to left-wing concerns about inequality and redistribution. In particular, the questions about mandatory licensing, the standard of living, the definition of monopoly, and free trade do not specifically challenge leftist sensibilities.
Yet on every question the left did much worse. On the monopoly question, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (31%) was more than twice that of conservatives (13%) and more than four times that of libertarians (7%). On the question about living standards, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (61%) was more than four times that of conservatives (13%) and almost three times that of libertarians (21%).
The survey also asked about party affiliation. Those responding Democratic averaged 4.59 incorrect answers. Republicans averaged 1.61 incorrect, and Libertarians 1.26 incorrect.
Adam Smith described political economy as "a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator." Governmental power joined with wrongheadedness is something terrible, but all too common. Realizing that many of our leaders and their cons uents are economically unenlightened sheds light on the troubles that surround us.
"Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics."
lol
oh, and why didn't you comment about your post, mister fister?
so the govt mandating homes meet a certain level of safety makes the home more expensive...... equaling less affordable. So I guess conservatives don't need housing code standards because it makes the house more expensive? Therefore housing code regs are unecessary because they make homes unaffordable....Basic economics acknowledges that whatever redeeming features a restriction may have, it increases the cost of production and exchange, making goods and services less affordable. There may be exceptions to the general case, but they would be atypical.
Well, I'll take my economic know how up against any board member outside of Scott. that guy.
Oh and I love the premise of the study. They don't count whether people actually know anything but just rather how incorrect they are. That to me should make the article's le that no one in our country knows economics. I would like to see the conservative answers and if they actually managed to get things right.
out of these three, which one is least likely to understand economics:
Obama
W Bush
Clinton
I think we can all agree that Cheney clearly understands economics.
Now is it Scott, or scott?
Well, even if the average conservative American understands economics better then the average liberal American I'll take my advice and understanding from Krugman and Roubini among others.
Clearly it's Obama. Look at the deficit, stimulus, healthcare....That guy spends and spends as if money is growing on trees. Someone needs to give him this clock. His goal. Stop the clock. Don't worry about turning it back for now, just stop it.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html
http://econjwatch.org/articles/econo...y-of-americans
We also report simple findings for the relation between economic enlightenment and each of the following variables: 2008 presidential vote, party affiliation, voting participation, race or ethnic group, urban vs. rural, religious affiliation, religious participation, union membership, marital status, membership in armed forces, NASCAR fandom, membership in the “investor class,” patronage at Wal-Mart, household income, and gender. Linked appendices provide all data and the survey instrument.
One interesting finding here was that economic literacy wasn't correlated to "going to college".
Seriously though, the poll generally gibes with my experience. The farther to the left someone is, the less likely they are to have a functioning knowledge of economics.We discuss possible explanations for the finding that economic enlightenment is not correlated with going to college.
Oddly though, a surprising number of conservatives who post in boards tend to not do too well when it comes to that stuff either. The advocates of free markets, while generally on board with most economic topics tend to miss out on some important things like negative externalities, and how monopolies and oligopolies can distort free markets to produce less-than-desirable outcomes.
Robert Reich man. If I had to pick a technocrat to really run things, that would be the guy.
Teaches at Berkely. Yeah, I went there biyatches.
Paul Krugman and Robert Reichhhhhhhhh?
Good Lord
My condolences
What problems do you have with Krugman, Darrin?
Reich is a fairly sensible policy wonk, and yes, he more than understands basic economics.
The fact that he teaches at Berkely is an added grain of sand in the eye of conservatives though. HA!
This doesn't surprise me at all. In the case of the student's I've had, I think the more extreme liberal ones have the hardest time reconciling economics with their social ideals.
"Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics."
That is an amazingly on-point statement. My favorite example I use in my classes is I have everyone raise their hand who thinks it would be great to have a world with zero pollution. Most students, even the most conservative, raise their hands (I mean, who wouldn't?) - the only ones who don't are the ones who seem to think it's a trick into converting them to being an environmentalist (I presume... who knows what these kids are thinking?).
We can have a world with zero pollution - but there is an opportunity cost. That OC entails pretty much everything we've come to know in modern life. In 6 years of teaching at the university level, only one student has kept their hand up when willing to give up everything to live a primative, pollution-free existence (he thought the idea of living in naked in mud huts was awesome... he was probably high at the time).
I do notice conservative students suffer from the same problem of reconciling economics with political ideals, especially when dealing with welfare economics (this isn't the economics of a welfare system but the economics of maximizing the total well being of society as a whole), but not nearly to the same degree.
Modern liberals (generalizing big time here) put social issues over economics, which is admirable but not practical or smart.
Modern conservatives put economics over social liberty, which is practical but a bit cruel and almost sociopathic.
I'm very much a social liberal but an economic conservative. This is what Libertarianism was supposed to be, but I think has lost it's way.
I have occasionally considered this. A nice fishing village in Madgascar with a fairly laid-back lifestyle. All I would really want would be some access to advanced medicine, and a good supply of books.
You might be interested in some of the studies of stone age hunter gathers on the pacific rim.
They spend remarkably little of their time making sure they didn't starve to death. Without rent/taxes, they only really needed to make sure they had enough food to feed themselves, and given a decent location, they ate surprisingly diverse diets, especially those in jungles near the ocean.
Loved that geography class.
I think that we can probably do a LOT along the path towards living more efficiently, and will probably be forced to do just that by rising costs of energy.
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/show...ht=party+rally
Religious fundamentalism happened. A lack of science education, and an over-emphasis on materialism.
I think the human tendency towards pseudo-science and conspiracy theory has cost us a great deal. Very hard to overcome self-indoctrination.
The internet doesn't help with it's tendency towards ideological circle-jerks.
Why does anyone need a study to show fiscal liberals don't understand basic economics?
If they did, they would no longer be fiscally liberal.
They would hit you over the head with their nobel prize if they heard you say that.
pretty much along those same lines:
The actual le here should be "What we have here is a failure to communicate".
What these folks measured was not economic intelligence or education, but the extent to which the respondents 'liked', 'disliked', 'agreed', or 'disagreed' with conventional financial orthodoxy as taught in most B-schools.
The far left may or may not know the textbook answers, but they DO NOT LIKE them, and their belief structure is at odds with the results of those who have practiced American style Capitalism for the last 30 - 40 years or so.
They are not, as some suggest, ignorant or stupid, but they DO think very differently wbout how the world OUGHT to work.
I went to school with a bunch of them. They remain as committed to their 'ideals' today as they ever were, regardless of their success level in life.
They just think differently, man. They really do.
This is obviously just the debate of whether Keynesian economics is full of or not. It is. So are they.
I also have no doubt they are both really good at math. Too bad that doesn't make their business cycle theory true. When you build on faulty assumptions about the world, you tend to be wrong a lot no matter how fancy your model.
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